For 19 Years, Pat`s Been A True Value

As anyone will attest, having listened to Pat Summerall, he`s no dummy.

As a matter of fact, he`s about to surpass the world`s most famous

``dummy`` for the longest relationship for any spokesman in touting a product or service for an advertiser.

The world`s best known dummy, of course, was Charlie McCarthy, who, with his late mentor, ventriloquist Edgar Bergen, hawked Chase & Sanborn coffee for the old Standard Brands firm (now part of RJR Nabisco) for nearly two decades, mostly on radio.

In October, Summerall begins his 20th year as spokesman for Cotter & Co.` s True Value hardware chain, a relationship that began on radio and now also involves television.

Summerall, arguably television`s most prominent pro football announcer, who also doubles in golf and tennis commentary on the CBS-TV network, may be better known to consumers for his True Value messages.

His True Value exposure involves something like 1,500 commercials annually. Summerall monthly hops a jet to Chicago, sometimes a direct flight from his home in Jacksonville, Fla., for recording sessions that run a few days, during which he`ll crank out more than 100 commercials.

``It (doing commercials) sure beats farming or teaching,`` said Summerall, who is in Chicago this week for the Western Open golf tournament at Cog Hill. Those were occupational options facing this Russian history major at the University of Arkansas until he landed a radio broadcasting job in 1960, while still playing for the New York Giants.

Eventually, George Allen Summerall-that`s his real name-got into television. But it was radio that got into him into the door at True Value.

Cotter in the early 1970s wanted to expand from local-market advertising to network radio for its True Value chain. CBS-TV offered Summerall to True Value, and it was a very attractive fit because former Cotter merchandising boss Ed Lanctot had heard Summerall deliver a eulogy on WCBS in New York, and liked it.

``Summerall came across very sincerely, just what we needed,`` recalls Lanctot, who retired in early 1989 after a 40-year stint with Cotter.

Summerall, primarily a kicker in a 10-year pro football career in which he booted 101 field goals and converted 258 out of 266 point-after-touchdown attempts, including 129 consecutive points, has been been a very durable and convincing spokesman for True Value.

``Pat comes across as very credible with consumers,`` says Glenn Alexander, senior vice president-retail and merchandising at Cotter, whose 7,200-store True Value chain generates $2.2 billion in annual sales. ``People can relate to him much more than the blue-suede-shoe set.``

$$$$$ ALERT FOR KENNEDY

What will it cost taxpayers to be warned to seek alternate transportation during the three-year reconstruction of the Kennedy Expressway in the city?

Try what reportedly will be a $600,000 to $700,000 budget for promotion and public relations, an assignment being contested by six firms here. Illinois Department of Transportation, overseeing construction involving the Kennedy from the junction at the Edens Expressway to the Ohio Street exit ramp, reportedly has lined up these Chicago firms for presentations tentatively scheduled next week: Burson-Marsteller; Lesnik Public Relations; Hill & Knowlton; Porter Novelli; Weiser Minkus Walek Communications; and Din & Pangrazio. The latter firm had a similar media-alert assignment a few years ago when a portion of the Dan Ryan Expressway was reconstructed. It created a Jack Hammer character to spearhead the promotion, advising travelers to seek alternate routes. Some of the firms in the Kennedy competition have lined up outside advertising resources to help in their pitches, though the promotion is basically PR.

Craig Daun, director of marketing of Hotel Nikko Chicago, is the new president of the Chicago affiliate of Sales and Marketing Executives International.

Pillsbury Co. is at the throat of Sunshine Biscuits, while Coors Brewing Co. is complaining about rival Anheuser-Busch`s new commercial for Bud Dry beer, in legal spats that surfaced Wednesday. Pillsbury filed suit against Sunshine, claiming the cookies-and-crackers maker is infringing on its Doughboy trademark. The Minneapolis-based Grand Met unit says there is a striking similarity between the new ``Drox`` character to promote Sunshine HYDROX cookies and its Doughboy. Golden, Colo.-based Coors, meanwhile, has asked the three major TV networks to discontinue airing a DDB Needham Chicago- created Bud Dry commercial that Coors alleges is falsely misleading in its claims, one being that Bud Dry allows a consumer to ``drink light, yet satisfy completely.`` Coors said Bud Dry had 25 percent more calories than leading light beers. Busch said the Coors complaint is unfounded.